Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Romney and the enthusiasm gap

To whom does Romney really appeal? Who are his broken-glass voters? Yes, he seems like a pleasant enough fellow and no one doubts his business or organizational acumen. But he’s hurt himself badly in the debates — and not just, as the new conventional wisdom has it, in S.C., but right from the start. The stammering, the stuttering, the evasiveness, the boilerplate bromides, the rude and annoying way he turns to stare at his fellow debaters when they’re speaking -- he’s an empathy-repelling Stepford Candidate; wind him up and he gives pretty much the same performance every time..From "Why Newt Could Win by Michael Walsh, The National Review

It's hard to imagine Romney fueling a rally, as Barack Obama did, with the "Fired up! Ready to go!" chant.

Yes, the GOP is fired up to defeat Obama, but I wonder how many party stalwarts and conservative leaners are thinking, "Eh, it won't be the worst thing in the world if Romney loses. Then Obama will have to struggle through the Euro-crisis and the painfully slow recovery. We can come back strong in 2016 with one of our stars now on the bench, grab a rising economy and usher in the dawn of the Republican Era. "

The number of Americans with negative views of Mitt Romney has spiked in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll... Among independents, Romney’s unfavorable rating now tops 50 percent — albeit by a single point — a first in Post-ABC polling back to 2006.... Obama’s numbers in this poll, conducted Wednesday through Sunday, have tilted positive, both among all Americans (53 percent favorable) and among independents (51 percent favorable).

(Romney) ..accepted payment from the non-profit Quest Educational Foundation. Quest provides tutoring and mentoring to high-school students in Florida and Romney spoke at their annual fundraiser...for a $35,771 fee.

Posted at 04:21:05 PM

Comments

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The only real difference between Nixon and Romney that I can see is that Nixon had a pulsating, suppurating insecurity that led him to see his political opponents as enemies, while Romney is supremely self-confident.

Tricky Dick was trained as a lawyer. He earned his nickname from a campaign in California. His female opponent gave him the name. His parents were religious. He hated JFK (everyone seemed to hate JFK). And may have been a conspirator in the assasination. He left Dallas the day before JFK arrived. His best friend was a Florida banker (or a Cuban mobster), named Bebe Rebozo. Rebozo was accused of laundering campaign money for Nixon.

Nixon knew all the major players accused of having ties to the JFK murder, including HW Bush.

Nixon had ties to MANY CIA agents and Operatives (contractors rather than employees of the CIA). Most of them died young or committed suicide. He was always worried they would talk (about you know what). LBJ shared the same paranoia.

Romney is nothing like Nixon, nothing. Romney signed Govt healthcare into law and also signed several very bad antigun laws into existence in Massachusets.

@Tory II:
It shows that you know nothing about Nixon.
Nixon wanted national healthcare, that was to be his crowning achievement.
He was actually a social liberal that was also a paranoid loon & Watergate destroyed that.http://tinyurl.com/mttlj3

In any second-term election, an incumbent president has the luxury of not having to veer to the outside during the primary, so he can carry a more consistent centrist message into the general.

In the cases where that's not true -- Ford v Reagan, Carter v Kennedy -- it wipes out the incumbent's advantage and leaves him very vulnerable to the vicissitudes of economic fortune and the "competence" argument.

Obama's ability to keep all challengers out of the primaries against him was always going to be a big plus. The GOP took a very sly calculated risk by trying to wipe out that plus by blocking Obama from the center, through the simple expedient of refusing to meet him halfway on anything.

They're not really fooling anyone but their own hard core by claiming that the lack of agreement is all Obama's fault. But they could persuade enough centrist voters that both sides are on the edges of the spectrum. Perfect opening for a milquetoast "moderate" to win it with a competence argument. Hence, Romney.

That's why I think Mittens is still their best hope, but it's still a longshot, and Obama's proving increasingly adept at claiming the center. The longer the GOP drags it out, the longer Romney has to maintain the illusion that he's hard right, which will continue to drain his support outside the party.

He needs to nail it down in time to have some Sister Souljah moment when he can call out a safe target representing his party's outer fringe -- the kind of jujitsu Clinton used to overcome the incumbent advantage against Bush 1.

Romney appeals to the 1% and any middle class people who are stupid enough to vote Republican, going against their own best interests. Republicans want to eliminate the social safety net programs that the government has provided to millions in the past century and instead use the money to keep making war in the Middle East.

Chris Matthews just made an interesting observation. How can a man who basically makes over $50,000 per day appeal to fading middle class voters who can't get to $50,000 per year? Yet, accuse them of class envy? Could that be the reason his unfavorable ratings are rising?

He couldn't do Obama a greater favor than releasing his tax returns today. How does the 1% candidate stand up to Obama's speech against the unfair tax burden on the middle class?

Tory II.....Nixon may have been a conspirator in the assassination of JFK? You should realize that you have lost the little remaining credibility you have on this site with that comment. You probably do not realize how crazy that sounds to normal people.

There was a segment last night on The Daily Show where a correspondent finds an enthusiastic Romney supporter and basically treats him like a very interesting insect. It was actually a little painful to watch, because this man, an older Southern gentleman, actually seemed like a very nice guy.

Walsh is exactly right and he's leading the charge at National Review (Eric, not to be picky but it's "National Review" not "The National Review") against Romney. He might say all the right things but he doesn't have a conservative record and he's a hard guy to like.

@J Valver,

I don't think that the GOP was making a sly calculated move at all but I also don't think that the disagreements are anyone's fault. I think there is a genuine philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats that happens to be a larger difference than at any point in our modern history. It's hard to work together when so often the two sides favor opposite solutions.

@MrJM,

He's a typical Republican nominee in that he's a moderate squish like every nominee we've had since 1984, but I'd say that he's far from the ideal. Unless, that is, you're arguing from a partisan point of view because you think (as I do) that he'd be the easiest for Obama to beat.

Sometimes it's jarring reading a response like yours becuase I don't know where it's coming from. Then I realize it's because you're responding to one of Tory's inanities and I'd been consciously checking the byline and skipping over stuff that he was writing.

LOL, you can ignore me but how can anyone ignore Obama and family using a govt owned fuel-guzzling747 for a one nighter in NYC to see a Broadway play ALL THE WHILE criticizing Romney for being a successful capitalist and a productive working American (who pays more taxes in one year than most secretaries will pay in their lifetimes).

Again, defending the poor defenseless govt from big bad evil me is also far out of proportion. Makes them into obvious bullies.

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